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Eye of the Beholder
' |image= |series= |production=40277-270 |producer(s)= |story= Brannon Braga |script= René Echevarria |director= Cliff Bole |imdbref=tt0708711 |guests=Mark Rolston as Lt. Pierce, Nancy Harewood as Lt. Nara, Tim Lounibos as Lt. Kwan, Johanna McCloy as Ensign Calloway, Nora Leonhardt as Ensign Finn (woman), Dugan Savoye as Lt. Hodges (man) |previous_production=Masks |next_production=Genesis |episode=TNG S07E18 |airdate= 28 February 1994 |previous_release=(TNG) Masks (Overall) Playing God |next_release=(TNG) Genesis (Overall) Profit and Loss |story_date(s)=Stardate 47622.1 (2370) |previous_story=Playing God |next_story=Profit and Loss }} Summary The crew is stunned by the suicide of Lieutenant Kwan, who jumps into the plasma stream by his work station in Nacelle Control. Troi and Worf investigate, and they are baffled as to why the seemingly well-adjusted crew member would take his own life. The woman he was dating, Ensign Calloway, is equally shocked, as is Lieutenant Nara, Kwan's supervisor, who remarks that Kwan seemed normal the day he took his life. Troi climbs the ladder toward the catwalk from where Kwan jumped, and is suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of panic and fear. Since Kwan was a partial empath, Beverly wonders if Troi picked up an empathic echo he left behind before his suicide. She urges Troi to be careful when returning to Kwan's station, and Worf consents to accompany her. As the two work together, hidden feelings hint at surfacing, but both resist. Later, they return to Nacelle Control and Troi climbs the ladder, abruptly finding herself in an unfinished version of the same room. She encounters a terrified woman and comes face-to-face with a strange, staring man before realizing Worf is nowhere to be seen. Still disoriented, Troi sees the woman again, now embracing another man, and joining him in laughing at Troi. She then finds Worf and returns to reality. When Picard hears the room's description, he suggests that Troi saw something from the time of the ship's construction eight years before — a project in which Lieutenant Kwan participated. Troi feels she may have been seeing something through his eyes, and she and Worf research personnel files from the construction project. Troi recognizes the staring man as Lieutenant Walter Pierce, who currently works in Engineering. She and Worf question Pierce, but he claims not to remember working with Lieutenant Kwan back then. Troi senses Pierce has empathic ability, and that he is hiding something. Later, Worf walks Troi back to her quarters, and they give in to their building feelings and kiss passionately. After spending the night together, Troi and Worf continue their duties. Beverly administers an empathic inhibitor to Troi, and she returns to Nacelle Control, while Worf stays in Sickbay to work with Calloway. Geordi opens the panel on which Kwan was working the day he died, and Troi suddenly sees the faces of Pierce and the terrified woman. Data and Geordi scan the wall behind the panel, and they find portions of a human skeleton, identified as the remains of the woman Troi saw. Since Lieutenant Kwan didn't start work on the U.S.S. Enterprise until six months after the woman's death, Troi realizes she didn't see the event through Kwan's eyes — she saw it through Pierce's. Worf goes to meet Pierce, while Troi returns to her quarters, and is shocked when Pierce arrives at her door. Pierce tells Troi that Worf went to Calloway's quarters, and Troi rushes over to find Worf and Calloway embracing, then laughing at her. Overcome with jealousy, Troi grabs Worf's phaser and kills him, then runs to Nacelle Control and prepares to jump into the plasma stream. Suddenly, a hand pulls her back, and she turns to see Worf, alive. Troi notices everything is the same as it was when she and Worf first came to the nacelle tube together, and realizes the entire experience since then occurred in her mind. Later, she learns that Pierce and the laughing couple had died in a plasma discharge eight years before. Troi surmises that Pierce caught the other two having an affair, killed them both, activated the plasma stream to obliterate the evidence, then committed suicide. Because Pierce was part empath, both Kwan and Troi picked up the empathic signature he left behind. Fortunately, in Troi's case, tragedy was averted. Errors and Explanations Nit Central # BrianB on Tuesday, June 29, 1999 - 2:43 am: Forgive me if someone had mentioned this previously, but why was it possible for Lt. Kwan to kill himself the way he did by throwing himself through a force field into the plasma flow in a nacelle tube? It's a force field but it was only one-way. The only practical purpose for a one-way force field would be for shuttlecraft to leave the shuttlebay. In the nacelle tube, not only should a force field keep dangerous elements in, but also keep dumb-dumbs like Kwan out. Are one-way force fields any more possible than transporters? I can buy that in sci-fi. Given that, I hope no one gets the urge to jump out an open shuttlebay hatch. Matthew Patterson (Mpatterson) on Tuesday, June 29, 1999 - 7:16 pm: I think that the shuttlebay forcefields are two-way, they're just really weak. All they have to do is keep one atmosphere's worth of pressure in the ship, so a shuttle would be able to generate enough pressure to punch through. Don't know about a person, though, as I don't know how much pressure would need to be generated. ' # ''By Tim Collins on Thursday, March 16, 2000 - 8:58 am: I didn't actually watch this episode this time round, so maybe they gave a reason that I don't know about. Why when he is getting ready to jump, and Riker is watching and trying to talk him out of it - doesn't anybody think to beam him out of danger? ''Chris Thomas on Saturday, March 18, 2000 - 2:18 am:'' Maybe they don't beam him because the time it would take for Riker to say "Emergency transport, ship to ship" or whatever is enough time for him to jump and kill himself. Mind you, it's been ages since I saw it and this explanation would only hold water if he was right on the precipice, seconds away from death. Seniram Maybe Riker is afraid the sound of him calling for an emergency beam out would compel Kwan to jump, even if there was no interference fron the plasma stream in the nacelle.' # ''•••••• on Monday, June 05, 2000 - 8:10 am: I don't understand the resolution of this episode. As the lawyer in the movie "Philadelphia says, "Explain it to me like I'm four years old.." Did Pierce really murder someone at Utopia Planetia? Or was he just acting as a conduit for the bad memories? Was Pierce actually ever in Troi's quarters? Did he really tell her to kill herself? I'm soooo confused… Anonymous on Tuesday, July 25, 2000 - 3:46 am: Okay, explain this one to me like I'm four years old… Troi & Worf try to trace the man who Troi saw in her dream. They go through the Enterprise's computer files. They find Walter Pierce. They interview him. He knows nothing. Then at the end of the episode, when we find out that the "empathic pattern" has been implanted in the nacelle, we find out that Walter Pierce, er, killed himself eight years previously. That's the same Walter Pierce who was on the computer, earlier on that day, as a current member of the crew; the same Walter Pierce who was interviewed by Troi AND WORF about the incident. Er, how did he manage this? ScottN on Tuesday, July 25, 2000 - 8:39 am: It was all in Troi's head. Anonymous on Tuesday, July 25, 2000 - 10:17 am: What, his empathic pattern had her hallucinating detailed computer records? Come on! Sounds more like a straight-down-the-line ••••-up to me. Charles Cabe (Ccabe) on Tuesday, July 25, 2000 - 10:25 am: No, the computer records were only detailed enough to fool Troi, which isn't that hard. As I understand it, from the time the computer announces 90 seconds to the 70 second announcement are in Troi's dream. # Keith Alan Morgan (Kmorgan) on Friday, August 16, 2002 - 6:07 am: Why didn't someone just put a phaser on stun and shoot Kwan? Are you seriously suggesting someone fires a phaser so close to the warp nacelle? Besides, the computer would logically be programmed to automatically deactivate any phaser located in such sensitive areas. # John A. Lang (Johnalang) on Sunday, February 24, 2013 - 7:51 pm: How come Troi didn't get cranky or when Dr. Crusher "turned off" Troi's empathic powers? Troi sure got cranky when they turned off in The Loss. She's become better at self control since then! In any case, she knew what was happening and why this time. Category:Episodes Category:The Next Generation